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The exploration of world cinema

Month: August 2016

Having spent a weekend of consuming creative, imaginative and boundary pushing horror (FrightFest 2016). It made me realise that the horror genre really does stand on its own when it comes to independent film making. In part this is due to large studios being too nervous to invest but in the main it seems that all types of filmmakers just love making horror.

It’s probably obvious to see why. Horror as an art form offers a range that no other genre can match. It’s the pizza equivalent of the Ultimate Meat Feast. From the classic cinema tropes of cinematography, direction, set design, screen writing etc Horror supplies the ultimate canvas for creativity. From setting the scare, devising the gore, designing the creatures, setting the atmosphere and sprinkling in a bit of humour – the scope is endless. In a way, horror can be the most challenging and demanding genre and a very crowded market to boot. Yet there is little to wonder why film makers don’t take their limited budgets to make a film that doesn’t require buckets of stage blood, piles of latex and huge cleaning bills. It is after all like spending your automobile budget on a classic fix-her-upper when the cheaper Hyundai provides all you need to cover your daily commute. But where is the fun in that? Where is the challenge? After-all it’s the limited budget that fuels the challenge – Isn’t it? Spend £1000 and gain convenience or spend £1000 to gain reward (via a journey of heavy stress, frustration, arguments and countless sanity checks). It’s interesting that the bigger the effort the sweeter the reward. It’s also interesting to think that a genre designed to depict all that is horrific is made by people that revel in dealing with the very toughest challenges in film making. For some at least, perhaps life really does imitate art.